(January 16, 2026)

Everyone is equal on the Internet; at least that’s what many people optimistically thought at the beginning of the millennium. When it gradually found its way in the late 1950s from military think tanks into academia and then initially a small public sphere, the Internet was considered a utopia. Hidden behind the mask of anonymity, all users would be equal and therefore would all have equal rights. There would be no hierarchies – not even among users in different countries.

Yet this hope that the Internet would be a non-discriminatory space remains an illusion to this day. Quite to the contrary, power structures are already firmly established in its technical infrastructure. They continue the history of colonialism in the virtual sphere in the form of “digital” or “electronic colonialism.”